Yodh
73 Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.
74 May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your word.
75 I know, Lord, that your laws are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
76 May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant.
77 Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight.
78 May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause; but I will meditate on your precepts.
79 May those who fear you turn to me, those who understand your statutes.
80 May I wholeheartedly follow your decrees, that I may not be put to shame.

Questions
1. How do you take in God’s word? Reading? Listening? Watching?
2. What might hinder your ability to listen? How could you overcome these?
3. What are areas of God’s word that you struggle to apply to your life?
4. What could you do to help you wholeheartedly follow God’s decrees?

v.1: Focus is on the action “live together”, not the condition “unity”

v.2-3: Three things that come down

Oil, Aaron’s beard, dew of Hermon

Questions to unlock this psalm:
1. If this psalm is about unity, why only “vertical blessings” mentioned?
2. What does oil, Aaron’s beard, and dew on Zion have to do with v.1?
3. In v.3, God bestows blessings on a specific location in Zion, why there?

A background check: Nehemiah 7:4; 11:1-2

Discussion questions:
1. Share your experience, if any, that God called you to do things that did not
make sense to you?
2. What does the term “spiritual blessing” mean to you? Give some examples?
3. What are some of the obstacles against faith? How can we, as a group together,
overcome them?

I planned to preach on Psalm 100 which is all about praising God. One of the things that came to mind as I was preparing the sermon is Acts chapter 16 where Paul and Silas have been arrested. They’ve been stripped and beaten with rod, thrown in prison, feet are in stocks and how did they respond in Acts chapter 16? They began to praise and sing hymns. So I was thinking about that as I was sitting in the waiting room, can I praise God in these times? Can I praise God no matter what situations we’re in? I felt God saying to me you’ve talked about this, about praising God in every situation, and now you get to live it.

When we talk about #StayAmped, we are talking more than just a physical excitement or energy. We are talking about a sustaining spiritual power that comes only from knowing Jesus and the life He wants to give us.

Today we will continue on with our series we’re doing this summer and as the title says it’s called 50 Shades Darker. It’s just a coincidence, it doesn’t have to do with the movie and book you might know. When you realize that people are going through mental challenges, emotional darkness, and challenges in life, the world just doesn’t seem to make sense to them. And sometimes things that are seemingly logical to a normal person might not be the same for someone who might be going through depression and emotional fatigue. And as we go onto this topic that we’re talking about, if you feel in any given time uncomfortable or if it triggered anything that goes through in your past memories or trauma, please free to take a break and go to the foyer. Today’s topic is on the topic of suicide.

I was looking at a study this week and it was on busyness. And researchers from Columbia business school looked into this idea of busyness in our lives. And they found that those who were busier seemed to have elevated social status. Somehow busyness is equated with our value and our worth but into all of that comes God’s voice and God says to not be busy. He doesn’t say fill all your calendars with activities but he says be still and know that I am God. You will find that passage today in Psalm 46.

I know what the Bible says, but. Have you said something like that or heard others say something like that? I love reading stories of redemption and forgiveness but often times it is challenging. There are a lot of areas in life and faith where Christians often say I know what the Bible says, but. I want to touch on three of them: Salvation through Christ, sexuality and money.

Today I want to talk a little about the idea of mental health. Mental health originally was something dealing with our psychological and our spiritual well-being. But over time because of the signs and technological and medical advancement, a lot of times in our society it’s been reduced to something that’s merely medical that we can just treat with a 12 step program or something that we just use medication and we can overcome these problems. Not that these things are bad, but these things are not the only options or the only things that we apply and things get better as a result. Even when we look at the idea of Psalms and the idea of getting real with God, you’ll realize that a lot of these psalmists, as they go through these internal struggles, their internal psychological darkness in their lives, you realize that these are not things that popping anti-depressants and they’ll solve these problems for them. But there’s something even deeper, darker in their own spiritual journey that they need to tend to, to find that consolation with.

It might not be so much in our mind the idea to take refuge. But we still do when we feel under attack sometimes. We still do when we feel we are under some kind of stress. We do feel we need some place to go, to rest, to recharge, to feel that we are in a safe place. King David talks to us. He tells us about his experience in finding refuge when life was hard. And he writes about that a number of times as read what David said and did in Psalms.

Over the next weeks until the end of September, we will be taking time to dig into the book of Psalms. The wonderful thing about Psalms is we learn about God, we learn about humans, we learn about ourselves, the things that make us angry and upset and joyful at times. We learn about people’s experiences, the different things that people went through, and how they process that with God. This is a real book so we entitled this series “getting real with God”.

Today we will be talking about spiritual dryness, perseverance, and advancement. I interpret spiritual dryness as not having motivation to work for God or putting God first, and feeling like you don’t feel like worshipping God, or you have doubts about God. I have a good analogy about faith and perseverance which is exercising.

Empowering future generations has always been an important but often neglected theme in the bible. Today I would like to follow the passage of a lesser known account of empowering future generations in the story of Elijah and Elisha. The passages I will focus on are 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 2. Let me read to you 1 Kings 19: 19-21 and see how this whole story between Elijah and Elisha opens up.

Families are a place where often older generations get to pass on some truths, knowledge and experience to the younger generation. So those life experiences, those things that we learn in life tend to trickle down through generations. Today is Mother’s Day. It’s a good day to think about family connections, to think about what we experienced in our families. When we look in the Bible, we see a passage where we read about these things being passed on, and here we are in the book of 2 Timothy 1:5, 2:2. We need to take opportunities to share our story of God’s faithfulness to us, of God’s work in our lives, of God being real to us.

Over the last couple months I have been looking forward to today, much more so than tomorrow. And this is true. I’ve been so eager to partner up with Compassion Canada, to share with you what God has been doing amazingly in places where we don’t normally see or hear from the news or social media. And today Jeremy Vis, Compassion Canada representative is with us, and he will be speaking after my portion. Some of those places Compassion Canada and Compassion International is serving, is among the poorest in the world. Their suffering is the norm of life. The word compassion is the word the Apostle Matthew chose to describe the inner state of Jesus when he went through all the towns and villages. When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were distressed, helpless like sheep without a shepherd. So today I hope this same word compassion, would also describe all of our inner states when we see those who are distressed and helpless.

John MacArthur years ago wrote this saying about an issue he wrote and said the gospel called to faith presupposes that sinners must repent of their sins and yield to Christ’s authority. The context of this statement he was talking about is a number of years ago there was something called the lordship controversy or lordship discussion. Those of you who have been around church for a few more years than others might remember this one. And the idea going for a while there there is teaching going around that said you could accept Jesus as your saviour, but he wouldn’t necessary have to be your lord. So it was almost like two decisions you make. You make the decision to accept Him as your saviour and then you can decide to accept Him as lord. And people responded to that said no you accept Jesus as saviour and lord is a better way to think about this. Not two separate decisions. You cannot say Jesus is my saviour but he is not lord of my life. That’s not really a valid statement. So there’s a number of people who wrote about this and John MacArthur was one. He wrote strongly against that idea.

As we talk about discipleship this month, a lot of the times we do have to make a lot of decisions in life and when our faith clashes with common sense or even how the world’s telling us to do things, we come to this intersection, this dilemma. And so today I just want to look at the Book of James and see where in that place in time James is teaching new believers in Christ how to live out a life in the Roman Empire with a sort of wisdom when they come to these kinds of decisions.

As we think today on our fourth vision of discipleship, I want us to start off with just that question that you see there: Are there any disciples out there? In 2001, a man named James Collins wrote a book called “Good To Great”. Some of you who were in business at the time or maybe in other circles may be aware of it, heard it or read it. An interesting thing in our missions is we took that book, not really required reading, but for those of us in leadership in the mission field, our international director encouraged us to read it. And some of the things in these sorts of business world books can help and guide. You can find some truths that will help in your ministries as well. Some of them didn’t apply but some of it did. One of the concepts he came up with is “Is good the enemy of great?” James Collins goes on to say this is one of the key reasons why we have so little who becomes great. We don’t have great schools principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great governments principally because we have good governments. Few people attain great lives in large part because it’s so easy to settle for a good life. Perhaps we can extend that and say the same thing about us as a church. Are we settling for good when we should really be striving, and working, and putting our energy and our gifts to be great?

Easter is usually a time where we come together and get to hear some lovely and really warm messages about how God has saved us and God has this crazy love coming pursuing for us. But since today is April 1, I decided to do something different, that’s actually not the title, the actual title of the sermon is ridiculously offensive. Okay now that the April Fool’s stuff is out of the way, and come on this is probably the only time in my life where I’ll preach an Easter sermon on April Fool’s day. So I hope you didn’t get offended in that little prank that I pulled there, but a lot of the times we do get offended by a lot of different things in life. One that happened recently was circulating on the internet, and maybe some of you knew about this.

Last month when Florence and I went to Pachuca in Mexico for a mission trip, we had a first hand experience of such intimate fellowship that comes from only having the same faith, worshipping the same God, and sharing the same hope.

This month is about unity. Today is special. In order to promote this vision of unity, the Cantonese Congregation and the English Congregation is doing an exchange of pastors today. Last month was Chinese new year, I came across a story behind a common greeting in which I have never known that it exists until last month. So this saying I’ll give you the literal meaning: It means one, group, harmony and atmosphere. But this can be translated better into harmonious unity. I think this story behind this Chinese saying is quite interesting and insightful.

God asks us to participate in the impossible – by definition we don’t have the skills for that. Do we have the faith to engage even though we don’t have what it takes?
God doesn’t not require us to succeed, but to try – success is up to Him – being brave enough to try is up to us.

Today as we begin looking at our third vision of unity, I want us to think about the idea of unity, not uniformity, that in ways that for us as a body of Christ we value you is one of our priorities, one of our visions to develop unity in us as a body of Christ. But we don’t want that to be confused with uniformity that everything, everybody becomes the same, and everybody looks the same. So we want to think about unity, but we also want to think it in the context that it is not also uniformity where everything is the same.

As we think of Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, as our example for how to live our life, certainly we should also be following him in prayer, and so we know that prayer is about talking or a conversation with God, but what about the content of our prayers, there was a conversation with God about what? Just about the things that are on our mind, the things that as we sit and as we think about life, the things that are on our mind, we just bring them to God, is that’s what it’s about? So let’s think about that a little bit this morning. What is this conversation with God all about? Let’s start by looking at some words, our friend the apostle John gives us something to think about as he writes his first letter to his friends, his dear children, as calls them we don’t really know who they were, but at the end of the letter, he says this: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

A lot of times when we get into the issue of praying, you can’t help it but ask what’s the best way of praying or even does the perfect prayer exist, is there the most efficient for the least amount of time you can pray the most effectively, are there certain words that you can say and it would be a better prayer, or you can pray for certain things and you always have to end with in Jesus name we pray Amen and that would be a good prayer, or even to the point where you look at how people pray and that would be a good prayer. But a little disclaimer, structured prayer isn’t bad in essence, but it shouldn’t be the only way either. It shouldn’t be the way that guides you or structures how you pray. When you look into the Bible especially the passage we will be looking at today in Matthew 6, you’ll realize that Jesus actually talks a lot about prayer, and the need to pray and have a relationship with God. And so when you look at this section of the Gospel known as the Sermon on the Mount, you’ll realize that Jesus gave a lot of instructions along with stories and analogies as to how we are to live out this life now that we are part of the Kingdom of God. Now that we are part of the Kingdom of God, what are things that we need to change from the old ways, what are things we need to change our attitudes about. And so when you look at Matthew 6, it highlights three different parts, especially about things people are already doing that He tries to put us into the right mindset. These three things he talked about are giving, praying and fasting.

How do I know what to pray? How can I pray? What is it I need to pray for? Sometimes it seems fairly clear and obvious what to pray for. But often we struggle in what to pray for. I don’t know about you but I’ve been in those places where we don’t know what to pray, what to say to God, what to ask God and what to bring to God. There’s a couple passages today I want us to look at that will start to help us think about that.

As we are doing outreach, are we bold, are we willing to take risks, to act innovatively, to have confidence and courage? This is where we come to the Book of Acts. We find our friends in the Book of Acts, doing just this.

Today I would like to share with you a passage about Paul’s attitude towards evangelism. I hope that this passage will melt the coldness in us in spreading God’s truth and love to the world. In this short passage, we have the apostle Paul tell us three necessary attitudes towards outreaching and evangelism. These attitudes are he is obligated, he is so eager to, and he is not ashamed of the gospel.

As I was reflecting on how we can preach the word of God and live out the gospel with boldness and without hindrance, it makes me start wondering what are the things that we have already been doing as a community and how have we lived out this life. And all the times we think about outreach, we are very conditioned to what kind of programs we do as a church, what events we do as a church and bringing our friends and family to church. But when we look at the story of Jesus in the gospel, it’s not so much just the event itself nor bringing people into the church building. That’s not the all and end all of living out the gospel and sharing the gospel. So what does that outreach idea mean when we’re hearing from Jesus as to what outreach is? One word that helped me focus on the idea of outreach is the word BAE. According to Oxford dictionary, it’s actually an acronym which stands for “Before Anyone Else”. Today we are looking at the parable of the Samaritan that Jesus taught in the Book of Luke.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And there’s probably some truth to that. And maybe you feel there’s a lot of truth in that. The unfortunate thing is there’s a whole bunch of new mistakes that we can make, and so even if we learn from history we have the opportunity to make a whole bunch of fresh mistakes that no one has ever made before. So we can learn from history and the Bible actually teaches us that and it affirms the need to remember as we go through life. We need to know what has happened before. It helps to build us, it helps us to understand the situation that we’re in if we understand where we’re coming from. And one of the modules in Sunday life group is Church history and one of the values of church history is to learn what has happened before so we can better understand what we face today.

As I was preparing for today’s message, I was trying think of what are some things that people usually think about when it comes to this time of the year. And usually the first thing that people tends to talk to each other about especially in fellowship or a community group is about New Year’s resolutions. And this sometimes is a time where people go and share about their experiences, and how they are energized about what something they like to change or transform for the new year. But it’s also a time when you come into a sense of discouragement or embarrassment thinking oh I tried to be more fit or I tried to get the bad habits out of the way, and by February or March, you already forgot what you’re trying to set out to do and you end up falling back into the old ways. Even for the past 3000 years, things have not changed much. If we look at today’s passage in Joshua, the same struggle happens to the Israelites, when they were going around the desert, figuring out where God’s plan is next for them.

When we look at the Christmas Story here today for a few minutes, when we look at the Advent, the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, we see how He was welcomed in the lives of a few different people right at the beginning of His life. So the first person we will look at is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Jesus proclaimed himself that He is the light of the world and promised that whoever follows Him will have the light of life. Today let us think about the reminder given in this passage by looking at both the context and content.

One of the things that happens in our lives, in our walk with God, is that we have some choices to make. Sometimes we make good ones, sometimes not so good ones, and sometimes we choose poorly. Sometimes we have small choices and sometimes we have big choices to make in life. Even if we think about our daily walk with God, we have choices to make. In our day to day life we have choices to make. We choose when we came here this morning when we are getting ready, we chose what we were going to wear. For some of us, that’s a fairly small choice. For others, that seems like a bigger one.

Today as we look into the passage of Isaiah, we realize that in our own walk in faith, we also only have one job that God has called us to do. And we often don’t even do that one job really well. But what does that mean and how does that affect our lives as Christians today?

Jesus helps us to see better who God is. Jesus is the light of the world so we know how to live in this world. In our darkness, He gave us light. We are to become children of light because God wants to be our father. What are some things you can do in this Christmas season to bring light to the world?

God is sovereign. God has power and authority but at the same time, He is gracious and merciful. As we encounter suffering, may what Job said be our guiding principle: God takes away but He also gives.

We are in the Father’s hand. Being in God’s hand, we are secure in the obstacles that we face in life. The Jews have all the knowledge about God but they don’t believe in Him. Almost, but not quite! There are two questions to think about: 1. Do you believe? 2. If you believe, do you follow?

God gives hope. In suffering we learn to cling to God. God promises to be with us in pain and suffering. Hope is God raising Jesus from the dead. We have sure hope of eternal salvation despite hard times.

The younger son gathered his things and left home. God’s heart still longs for the lost. The is the reason why He sent Jesus to embrace us while we were still in our sins. Why would Jesus spend time with sinners?

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2016/10/sharing-from-deacons/feed/0But Among You There Must be Thanksgivinghttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2016/10/but-among-you-there-must-be-thanksgiving/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2016/10/but-among-you-there-must-be-thanksgiving/#respondSun, 09 Oct 2016 22:32:08 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=13610Message by Rev. Gilbert Nigh, Congregational Life Pastor

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2015/07/prayer-whats-the-point/feed/0What Do We Do with the Miracles of Jesus?http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2015/06/what-do-we-do-with-the-miracles-of-jesus/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2015/06/what-do-we-do-with-the-miracles-of-jesus/#respondSun, 28 Jun 2015 22:57:01 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=12955Sunday Message by Dr. Tawa Anderson

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/10/allow-yourself-to-be-free-indeed/feed/0Simon Son of John, Do You Love Me?http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/10/simon-son-of-john-do-you-love-me/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/10/simon-son-of-john-do-you-love-me/#respondSun, 19 Oct 2014 19:49:49 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=12528Message by Pastor John Chen

Pastor Don challenges us to look at our own lives and ask “What kind of Christian am I?”

Text: Book of Philemon

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/04/character-development/feed/0Sometimes, it is not that easy to look up to Heavenhttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/04/sometimes-it-is-not-that-easy-to-look-up-to-heaven/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/04/sometimes-it-is-not-that-easy-to-look-up-to-heaven/#respondSun, 06 Apr 2014 22:02:00 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=11948Message by Pastor Sam Wong

Pastor Sam shares that a righteous person is not the one who observes a particular code of ethics, but rather a person or even a community granted a special relationship of acceptance in the presence of God. Righteousness is not about keeping rules and regulations, but keeping faith in a relationship, a relationship with God.

Pastor Don asks us to share with one another if we are a half full glass person or a half empty glass person. Whether we’re negative or we’re positive tells us a lot about our personality and sometimes how we view life.

Text: 2 Timothy 2:15-3:12

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/03/leadership-needed-how-about-you/feed/0Worship: What We Are Created to Do!http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/03/worship-what-we-are-created-to-do/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2014/03/worship-what-we-are-created-to-do/#respondSun, 16 Mar 2014 22:16:18 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=11935Message by Rev. Don Gardner, English Lead Pastor

Pastor Don challenges us to take a few moments and reflect about and experience worship. The reason is because when we come together as corporate worship, our goal needs to be clear to us. At the end of the service, we need to be going out as missionaries. We need to be walking out thinking and reflecting about God. We need to be asking God what we’re doing with our lives. So when we ask about the contemporary worship for our day to day, are we doing that which pleases God as we respect Him?

Pastor Don challenges us to allow baptism to be a symbol as it identifies our relationship with Christ. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper help us to reflect on our relationship with God. They are testimonies and identification points in our lives.

Pastor Don challenges us to ask ourselves what do we think is a successful life? Job’s success was dependent on God beyond his own understanding. We want people to depend on God, those people are successful.

Pastor Don talks about evangelism is our job, conversion is God’s job. You can’t make someone else become a Christian, you can have a burden for them, care, and love for them but ultimately that decision is theirs and between them and God alone. But if we don’t do our responsible job in sharing, if we don’t dare to care and step forward, we are irresponsible of the job God has given us. Our responsibility is to develop disciples, not church members.

Pastor Don shares that Christ modelled the Lord’s Supper for us. It’s for believers that would come together and want to have fellowship, and that’s a time we see valuable. Our Lord’s Supper is to remind us of our relationship with God. We do it out of praise, thanksgiving, and remembrance of what Jesus did by sacrificing himself on the cross for our benefit.

As we look at Esther’s story, patience is in His hands, which is basically saying don’t worry so much, take it Easy. God is in Charge. Esther was a woman who’s very intelligent, bold, courageous, was willing to make quick and right decisions, was very dependent on God for leadership, and she found advice from Mordecai. When it comes to things and events going around you, what you learn is very much important in life.

Pastor Don shares from the Book of Esther, which gives us the opportunity to learn and grow, and hear some things that are applicable to our own lives, such as courage, strength of conviction, and bravery under difficult circumstances.

Last week the priest Zechariah said the same thing in different words: “the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness.” Now the predicted event is coming closer and closer. The angel Gabriel is back, and the divine spotlight shifts to Mary. And the prophecy is coming even clearer: For the first time we hear that the coming One will be called Jesus, and that this Jesus will be called the Son of God.

Zechariah is a person of faith. Who was Zechariah? Zechariah was God’s priest serving God’s people in God’s temple. What is faith? Faith is when we believe and we know something’s true. Is our faith real, visible, living in all areas of our life? If it’s not, what do we need to do? Are we bringing our future to God? Zechariah brought his sadness, his hurt, and his wife’s feeling of disgrace. He brought all these things to the Lord in prayer. It’s the natural thing to do if we believe, to pray about our needs, concerns, doubts, hopes and our needs for guidance.

Gary encourages you to think about the following questions. What does it mean to you that God is with His people in a special, unique way? Do we put up with second best? Do we care if God is with us in that special way? Do we experience God’s presence in that special way? If not, what are we doing about it?

Jack shares from Matthew 5:8 that we would see God when our heart is pure. Have you wished you would see God more clearly? Have you ever thought of asking Him to show you more visibly that He is real? Jack shares his own experiences from his work with people.

John Cuddeford shares that opportunities to share about Christ are all around us. God invites us to seize the opportunity to be involved in His kingdom, to be part of His history and His story. God wants us to open our eyes and meet the needs of others.

Alfred Lu and Lewis Chan share a message on “changes” with two case studies. The first one is Joseph and his brothers, and the second Tsawout First Nation. We are asked these questions: What creates positive change among people? How does God grow people? And how can we be used to grow people?

The focus is on the theme of Jesus giving rest, as the Good Shepherd, to His people in the desert. We’ll especially be looking at the deep compassion/love of Jesus for His people, and indeed for all those in “desert” places. Especially as His provision of food is a sign of the messianic banquet that we all look forward to. And of course, the challenge is for us, as His followers, to also be “feeding” His people throughout the world.

Pastor Ray shares that as we begin a new year, he encourages us to walk in the purpose of God. He has created us to be a blessing and we can commit to find ways to serve, love, forgive, heal, and build up others.

David Gotts challenges us to start running the race and to pursue God. And to make your life count for eternity, live a noble life, live a committed life, live something better than the life perhaps that cause you to think “is this it?”, live a life that says, here I am, send me.

Pastor Ian shares that the King of creation has come here today victorious, the conqueror of sin. He has come here to declare this land is His land. And He comes here on purpose, to bring to you His temple, His residential palace, what only He can bring. What will be your response to the King of Creation today?

Pastor Tom shares how the gospel in its authenticity is much more than words we speak, there must be power, a dynamism – the power of the Spirit at work and deep conviction by those who bring the message.

Text: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/06/what-a-model-church-looks-like/feed/0The Church that Needs to Get Back to the Basicshttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/06/the-church-that-needs-to-get-back-to-the-basics/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/06/the-church-that-needs-to-get-back-to-the-basics/#respondSun, 09 Jun 2013 15:59:43 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=11007Message by Pastor Tom

Pastor Tom share how Paul opens his letter and tells us how our lives as Christians have to be rooted and lives out where we live. Christianity is no escape from the real world.

Pastor Tom share how we are walking on a path in which every brick of that path and every inch of the path is labelled with a single word ‘grace’. Everywhere step you take you stand on grace. The entire foundation of Christianity stands on GRACE.

Pastor Johnny shares about the stories that make up EDGe: Elim, Daniel and Gideon.

Text: Exodus 15:22-27, Daniel 6:1-28, Judges 6:15-16, 7:1-8

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/05/a-journey-through-edge/feed/0The Church that Forgot How to Lovehttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/05/the-church-that-forgot-how-to-love-2/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/05/the-church-that-forgot-how-to-love-2/#respondSun, 12 May 2013 15:40:10 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=10785Message by Pastor Tom

Pastor Tom shares about the church that forgot how to love.

Text: Revelation 2:1-7

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/05/the-church-that-forgot-how-to-love-2/feed/0The Church in the Worst City in the Worldhttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/05/the-church-in-the-worst-city-in-the-world/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/05/the-church-in-the-worst-city-in-the-world/#respondSun, 05 May 2013 15:05:18 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=10772Message by Pastor Tom

Pastor Tom shares how the cross is set against the background of a darkening moral culture, and that the radical power of the cross will have to be nothing less than the power that sets free those who have been enslaved in sinful patterns of life.

Pastor Tom shares that desire for change lies deep in the human heart, and it is motivated by hope. The only person we have the power to change is ourselves. There must be the realization that we cannot change other people. The entire hope of gospel is based on the truth that through the mercy, grace, and love of God – people can change. We can change – I can change. If we do not believe that, we should quit singing hymns and close the doors.

Text: Romans 12:1-2

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/04/when-in-rome-think/feed/0Athens: The Church and the Post-Christian Cityhttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/04/athens-the-church-and-the-post-christian-city/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/04/athens-the-church-and-the-post-christian-city/#respondSun, 21 Apr 2013 15:34:32 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=10713Message by Pastor Tom

Pastor Tom shares that when the church functions and acts like the church, it is more than an organization, it is a movement and ministry empowered by the Trinity.

Pastor Tom shares about what makes Antioch important as a church.
If it had not been for what happened at Antioch – Christianity might never have got out of the box of living in Jerusalem. It was at Antioch that Christianity made its first move to become a world faith, and the gospel broke free and moved into the world. It was at Antioch that the church began to think and act outside the box.

Text: Acts 8:1-3, 13:1-3

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/04/antioch-the-church-that-thinks-outside-the-box/feed/0Being a Spiritual Community in a Cityhttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/04/10619/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2013/04/10619/#respondSun, 07 Apr 2013 15:39:28 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=10619Message by Pastor Tom

Pastor Tom shares about how God has a purpose in history, it is more than simply to save individuals, his purpose is to create a new humanity, a new community, a new people who share the same beliefs in a common Lord. This new community has a name, it is called The Church, and in every city where it exists, it is to be unlike anything that the city has ever known or seen before.

Pastor Tom shares that the message of the kingdom is in the story of the resurrection.

This message of the kingdom is the crux of Jesus prayer, may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is done on heaven, the kingdom is not a place, it is the reign and rule of God, it starts now, to be completed in the days to come. It is both present and future.

Pastor Tom shares that conversion is a radical change in our lives, its first step is to free us from the past, cut us loose from past and often destructive patterns of behavior, sinful ways of living, negative forces within our own lives, and gives us a fresh start for the future.

Was there a time in the past when you were more excited about your faith than you are now, but to be honest, things seem to have settled into a dull routine. Where you enjoyed being creative, that has been replaced by mediocrity. Frankly, you would love to get more involved in some kingdom activity but you are just too busy. Or perhaps something happened that soured your enthusiasm.

Are you prepared to do anything about it? You can start to change the soil of your life, starting right now.

Pastor Tom shares that the kingdom is to be the priority in our lives. When we make a choice, a kingdom choice, we are putting God’s agenda first in our lives. We are called to think in terms of kingdom choices, making the kingdom a priority.

Pastor Tom shares about when Jesus calls us to experience his kingdom, he often invites us to take a risk, to leave what is safe and familiar and plunge into some new territory, a new land of the heart.

We come to the last word and the final warning from God in the Ten Commandments, do not covet. We are challenged to recognize the toxic disease of greed. The desire for more and more, for bigger and better is both seductive and psychotic.

We live in the most technologically advanced time in history. There are more inventions and gadgets today than we have ever known. We have become worshippers of our inventions. We worship what we have created. However, idolatry is not about having little statues in our homes. It is about the condition of our heart before the one and only true God.

In this message, Pastor Tom shares we need to be aware not to become idol-worshippers of anything.

As Christians, we often feel the pressure to be conformed and shaped by the world’s strange customs. The question is, how will we maintain our unique identity? How will we live out the distinctive characteristics of being God’s holy nation?

What is the next step God is calling you to take? Perhaps it is something that stays with you, keeps whispering in your ear. You keep coming back to. It seems that you cannot escape its voice. That is God defining for you what lies next.

1. Prayer must focus on the reputation of God as a Holy God.
2. Prayer must focus on the goal of Kingdom goals.
3. Prayer must focus on living daily.
4. Prayer must focus on Forgiveness as a lifestyle.
5. Prayer must focus on the protection of God against temptation.

It is our unity and our oneness that is a testimony to the fact that we belong to God. The Good News is not for good people. The Good News is for people who simply acknowledge that they are not good enough.

Moses Seo shares three things with us. First, do not be weary in doing God’s work. Second, we must believe that we will reap a harvest according to God’s time. Third, never give up. Keep on doing good, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His love.

Pastor Tom will shares with us the analogy that our life is sometimes like rock climbing. We may have to tighten our grip on the rope and hang on. God has given us both His Son and His Spirit. All we have to do is tie the rope of our life to them and tighten the knot.

Can you imagine Jesus standing just at the other side of the finishing line, a pile of t-shirts in his hand, ready to hand them out to all those crossing the line, and it simply says on them “finisher”?

“Let there be light” is the earliest expression of the nature and character of God. Without light, nothing will grow, nothing will be seen. Light is needed for life to exist. He is the light that reveals, nurtures, exposes.

Jesus’ disciples were expecting the coming of long-awaited Messiah, the king of Israel, and not just of Israel but of all the earth. In the sermon, Pastor Cindy explains how the disciples’ understanding of Jesus’ last journey was flawed.

Text: Luke 19:28-40

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2012/04/jesus%e2%80%98-journey-to-jerusalem-is-our-journey%e2%80%a8/feed/0Understanding Life from A to Zhttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2012/03/understanding-life-from-a-to-z/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2012/03/understanding-life-from-a-to-z/#respondSun, 25 Mar 2012 18:13:27 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=8937Message by Pastor Tom

What is the first chapter of our history as the human race? What is the last chapter? What is our beginning and origin? Jesus says that these critical questions are wrapped up in who he is.

Jesus comes as the light of the world, not just to be the external light, but to be that inner light in each of us. The light that does get snuffed out.

Text: John 1:1-5, 8:12

]]>http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2012/02/why-we-need-jesus-as-our-light/feed/0What Jesus the Lamb of God Can Do for You Todayhttp://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2012/02/what-jesus-the-lamb-of-god-can-do-for-you-today/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2012/02/what-jesus-the-lamb-of-god-can-do-for-you-today/#respondSun, 19 Feb 2012 20:38:08 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=8818Message by Pastor Tom

Imagine you were asked to introduce Jesus to a group of people, how would you do that? What kind of introduction would you go for?

We know that we need bread for each day, shelter to sleep, all these physical needs, God knows that also, but he also knows that we need more, we need those things that we cannot touch and cannot see. We need faith to live, we need hope to get up tomorrow, we need love to sustain our hearts.

When the angel tells Joseph, you will give him the name Jesus, it is saying a great deal because embedded in his name is the focus of our worship, the authority of our ministry, the resolve against some injustice, and the authority of our message.

God asks something of us that lies beyond our knowledge. Beyond what is normal, which will require faith to trust him. We ask, how can this be? How will this all work out? Nothing is impossible with God.

Text: Matthew 1:18-25

]]>
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2011/12/allowing-god-to-do-the-impossible/feed/0What Will You Do With The Truth?http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2011/12/what-will-you-do-with-the-truth/
http://vcbc.bc.ca/english/2011/12/what-will-you-do-with-the-truth/#respondSun, 11 Dec 2011 21:03:57 +0000http://www.vcbc.bc.ca/english/?p=8478Message by Pastor Tom Cowan

What will you do with the truth? We need to understand how two different people ask exactly the same question. The wise men seeking Jesus as king to worship him and King Herod seeking Jesus to kill him are intended to challenge us to think about how we respond today to the truth of God.

So ask yourself: as you worship Christ this Christmas, how will the truth of Jesus this Christmas change your life?

Why should you pray? When you sacrifice everything to follow Christ, when he is your only hope and our only desire, when the longing of your heart day in and day out is to lead other people to faith in Christ, then you need prayer.